What two dying flowers reminded me about the kind of love that stays

This morning, I looked at my flowers.

Not because they were especially beautiful anymore.

Actually, they were dying.

The bright yellow flowers that had once stood tall were curling at the edges. Some were drooping. Some had already begun to lose the shape they had when the bouquet was fresh.

They had reached that stage when most of us start thinking,

I probably need to throw these away.

But then I noticed something.

Two of the yellow flowers were facing one another.

One long, tired petal reached all the way across the space between them. And right there in the middle, the other flower’s petals met it.

They weren’t just touching.

They looked like they were holding hands.

Two flowers already beginning to fade.

Their petals were wrinkled and curled. Their heads were beginning to droop. Their brightest days, at least as far as a bouquet is concerned, were behind them.

And somehow, right there in the middle of all that wilting, they were still reaching for each other.

I know.

They’re flowers.

They didn’t wake up this morning and decide to hold hands.

But sometimes something ordinary catches your heart before your mind has time to explain it away.

And all I could think was:

What love that is.

Because isn’t that what love really looks like?

Not just the beginning.

We talk about beginnings all the time.

The butterflies.

The first dates.

The wedding pictures.

The newborn babies.

The new house.

The fresh flowers.

Everything standing tall and bright and full of promise.

But we don’t talk nearly enough about what love looks like after life has been sitting in the vase awhile.

When the petals aren’t quite as perfect.

When bodies change.

When money gets tight.

When somebody gets sick.

When grief moves into the house and refuses to leave on schedule.

When you’re tired.

When you’re irritated.

When you’ve heard the same story seventeen times and already know exactly how it’s going to end.

When life hasn’t turned out the way either of you imagined.

When there are wrinkles where smooth skin used to be.

When dreams have been rearranged, delayed, or buried.

When you’ve both been bruised a little just by being alive.

That’s when love starts looking different.

Less like a bouquet from the florist.

More like those two flowers.

A little wilted.

A little tired.

Maybe missing a few petals.

But still reaching across the space between them.

Still saying,

I’m here.

Nothing dramatic.

No movie soundtrack.

No grand romantic goodbye.

Just an ordinary morning.

He left for work because that’s what life looks like most days.

Jobs.

Bills.

Schedules.

Things that need doing.

And after he left, I happened to look over at the bouquet again.

There they were.

Those same two flowers.

Still holding hands.

One tired petal stretched across the space between them, with the other flower’s petals wrapped right there with it.

And suddenly, I couldn’t help thinking about twenty years of marriage.

Because twenty years doesn’t look like a wedding picture.

It can’t.

Twenty years has lived some life.

It has cried.

It has worried.

It has paid bills.

It has raised children.

It has been disappointed.

It has celebrated.

It has sat in waiting rooms and around dinner tables.

It has laughed until it couldn’t breathe.

It has probably wanted to strangle somebody over where they left their socks. 😂

It has seen beautiful seasons and seasons nobody would ever frame and hang on the wall.

Not staying exactly as you were at the beginning.

Maybe love isn’t supposed to stay new.

Maybe it’s supposed to become something deeper.

Something weathered.

Something that has seen a few storms.

Something that knows exactly how fragile the other person is and chooses tenderness anyway.

Love isn’t always grand gestures.

Sometimes love is bringing somebody coffee without asking.

It’s picking up their medicine.

It’s making dinner when the other one is exhausted.

It’s sitting beside them when there isn’t anything you can say to make it better.

It’s working things out when walking away would be easier.

It’s saying, I know you’re tired. I’ve got this one.

It’s laughing together when everything seems to be going wrong.

It’s arguing, cooling down, and coming back to the conversation.

It’s knowing when somebody needs advice and when they just need you to hush and sit beside them.

It’s remembering how the other person takes their coffee.

It’s a kiss goodbye before someone leaves for work.

It’s learning that forever is mostly made out of very ordinary Tuesdays.

And sometimes love is simply reaching across whatever little distance has grown between you and saying,

And sometimes love is simply reaching across whatever little distance has grown between you and saying,

Come here.

We spend so much time trying to keep everything from wilting.

Our faces.

Our bodies.

Our homes.

Our marriages.

Our families.

Our lives.

We want everything to stay fresh and beautiful.

But maybe there is beauty in the wilting too.

There is something sacred about being loved by someone who has seen your tired petals.

Someone who knows you aren’t always standing tall.

Someone who has watched pieces of you fall away through grief, disappointment, age, mistakes, motherhood, sickness, exhaustion, and change…

and still reaches for you.

That kind of love doesn’t photograph quite as perfectly.

But goodness.

What love that is.

Maybe that’s why these two little dying flowers got me so much this morning.

If they had been brand-new flowers, standing tall and perfect, I might never have noticed them touching.

But they weren’t.

Their petals were curling.

Their heads were drooping.

They were fading.

And somehow, that made the reaching even more beautiful.

Not because they were dying.

But because even there, in the fading, there was still connection.

Still closeness.

Still something reaching across the space.

Still holding hands.

Someday every bouquet fades.

Someday every one of us will.

That’s just the truth of being human.

And if Jamey and I are blessed enough to grow very old together, I imagine we’ll probably look a whole lot more like these two flowers than the people in our wedding pictures.

A little bent.

A little weathered.

Probably complaining about our backs.

Maybe forgetting why we walked into the kitchen.

One of us insisting we already told the other something that we absolutely did not. 😂

But I hope we’re still reaching.

Still laughing.

Still finding one another across the room.

Still saying I love you.

Still choosing tenderness.

Still holding hands.

Still holding on.

This morning, I almost saw a bouquet that needed to be thrown away.

Instead, I saw something I don’t think I’ll forget.

Two tired flowers.

Their petals wrinkled.

Their blooms fading.

And right in the middle of it all, they were holding hands.

And I thought about the man who had just walked out the door to go to work.

About twenty years.

About ordinary mornings.

About all the life we’ve lived between that wedding day and this one.

And about how beautiful it is to have someone who has seen your petals fall…

and still reaches back.

Because maybe the most beautiful part of love isn’t that it blooms.

Maybe it’s that, even while the petals are falling, it keeps reaching for someone to hold.

🌻

Always,

April

Big Heart, Real Life

This was the picture after Jamey had been gone for about 20 minutes. (Why am I ugly crying this morning?)